In the land of the rising sun

Hey everyone,

Well its been about 16 hours into our trip, and we are in Tokyo waiting for our next flight. It's already been an interesting trip!

First, we originally had a 9:40am flight out of Raleigh to Chicago, then connect to Tokyo, then to Shanghai. However, this morning around 6:30am an American Airlines representative called and said that flight was cancelled, and that they only had an 8:55 flight from Raleigh to JFK, and then from there to Tokyo, and that it would be coach rather than first class. So we had to rush and scramble to get to the airport to catch that flight, or else we wouldn't make it to Tokyo. Everything went alright - we ended up with a flight actually from Dallas to Tokyo.

The flight from Dallas to Tokyo was 12 1/2 hours, but we were in business class so it was sweeet! Except the part where the dreaded announcement occurs, "if there is a doctor on board, please come to the middle of the cabin." So hesitantly, I step up, but also a female doctor (cardiologist) also steps up, and I follow her to the patient, who is allergic to shellfish but accidentally ate some clams, and was having tingling of her face and voice changes and wondered if there was an Epi pen on board. We give her benadryl and prednisone from the cardiologist's stash (she has kids with asthma), and the patient does great. Whew!

Finally, our poor dog Sofie has had diarrhea the past 3 days, and even had an accident at home before we left - which is very unlike her. Our dear friend Stephanie is staying at our house and watching her, and we check our e-mail when we arrive to Tokyo - and Sofie has crapped in our house 3 times. =(::::: I hope she's ok....she's eating and playing, so it sounds like a simple case of the shits.

We'll upload some pictures of the luxurious 'first class lounges' and of the Japan airport soon....thats all we have so far...

Will keep you posted!

Alan and Nicole